


wrapped up in winding sheets

by Hiaennyddei



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Attempted euthanasia, Blood and Gore, Body Dysphoria, Comes Back Wrong, Gen, Human Experimentation, Hurt No Comfort, Imprisonment, Isolation, Memory Loss, Mind Rape, Minor Character Death, Necromancy, Panic Attacks, Possession, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Torture, Unhappy Ending, Vomiting, also major character death, i'm not kidding with the torture warning it's pretty graphic, in the "render people brain dead" sense of the term, like only Corvo makes it through the story and still mostly qualifies as "alive", the long and painful realization that the Heart is not quite Jessamine, there is literally nothing right in this AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:14:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28194519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hiaennyddei/pseuds/Hiaennyddei
Summary: Nobody comes to free Corvo from Coldridge.(written as an exercise in making Corvo suffer as much as humanly possible)
Comments: 13
Kudos: 23





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stealingpotatoes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stealingpotatoes/gifts).



> This was written after a chain of events in the Discord server led to me creating the most incredibly painful AU I could think of. Heed the tags, they're here for a reason.

Nobody comes to free Corvo from Coldridge.

That would be alright, all things considered. Jessamine is gone, he’s never seeing Emily ever again. A few nights in a cell, a swift execution, it’s all Corvo could ask for at this point. But he’s a stubborn motherfucker, and if they want him dead, it’ll be without getting a word out of him.

Hiram Burrows, unfortunately, is _also_ a stubborn motherfucker.

\---

They try. They really do. But Corvo won't speak. So they keep going. Six months, seven months, eight months. After so much time, Burrows and Campbell start to have trouble reigning the torturer in.

By six months, he shatters Corvo's knees. The guards have to carry Corvo back to his cell while he's howling in pain as his long legs are dragged on the floor.

By seven months, Corvo doesn't have enough teeth left to eat anything solid.

By eight months, his body is so damaged, he can only sleep a few minutes at a time before the muscle spasms wake him up.

By nine months, the torturer hits his head so hard he nearly dies. He makes it through, but his left eye won't work anymore.

At this point, they stop the torture.

\---

They take another approach. They throw him in a cell, alone, just a hole in the ground. And simply leave him there.

Twice a day, a guard comes to leave him a plate of mashed food. They never talk to him.

After a couple weeks, Corvo stops eating. They try force-feeding him, but it defeats the purpose of isolation. And it wouldn't do well to lose the killer of the Empress. After all, he's the proof that Burrows honored her memory and had her killer swiftly arrested.

From this moment onwards, twice a month, they give him a short update on how Emily's going.

No useful details. She's healthy, she's well treated, she's safe, she's given a good education. Sometimes they let him look at a drawing she did, before they take it away.

Corvo starts eating again.

\---

Corvo's body heals. Badly. He's no longer being tortured every day, so at least the open wounds close up (the scars are horrifying and itch at every move). The bones mend (in ways bones aren't ever supposed to fuse). His muscles are working again (the spasms get worse).

He's missing four fingers. He can't eat without making a mess. He'll never walk again.

\---

At some point, Corvo starts coughing.

The fever takes hold. It's a mercy. He finally manages to stay asleep for several hours.

Through the haze, he hears someone saying that he doesn't have long left. It's not Sokolov. They permanently pulled the Royal Physician away from him after the old goat attempted to put him out of his misery, months earlier.

Something's rolling out of his remaining eye, down his cheek.

Darkness takes over.

\---

When Corvo wakes up, he sees whales swimming in the sky.

Corvo blinks his eyes. Then blinks again.

He hasn't been able to blink both eyes for weeks _(months?)_ now.

He takes a breath. His chest rises without issue. No tremor in the muscles. No creaking ribs.

Nearly choking with hope that he _absolutely doesn't want to feel_ , Corvo sits up, and looks down at his own body.

It's- normal. Human. Not the horrendous mess of bone fragments wrapped in skin that used to be his legs. All his fingers seem to be here. His field of vision got a serious increase. His left ear has lost the whistling that had appeared after Sokolov's botched euthanasia.

There's something - not wrong, but unfamiliar, with his body. Fingers a bit too smooth where they should be calloused from sword work. Nails a bit too clean. Teeth a bit too well-aligned.

He's wearing his old Lord Protector uniform, and he's starting to open his shirt to check if the rest is back in shape as well, when he hears a voice behind him.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you. I can suppress the pain, simulate a functional shape, hide the rest of it with heavy fabric. But do me a favor and don't stretch the illusion."

Corvo nearly jumps away and off the floating rock he's sitting on. It's the first voice he's heard in _days weeks months months please let it only be months_ , besides the monotone soldier who gives (used to give?) him Emily's news. But after so long spent forcing himself not to move _(motion is pain)_ , all he does is slowly turn his eyes at the black-eyed young man looking down at him.

"Am I dead." It's the first words he's pronounced since Jessamine's death. He doesn't think he remembers how to give inflexions to his sentences.

Death is appealing. He feels some regret about Emily, still out there in the vulture's nest, but not nearly as much as he probably should. And oh, isn't that a shameful lack of emotion.

The entity smiles. Somehow, it feels forced. "Sorry. No luck."

"That doesn't answer my question."

"You'll live."

Corvo thought he wanted to fight. Make sure that Emily's safe. Hear about his daughter growing up, not free, but at peace. But he's had a taste of death, of rest, of _painlessness_ , and resolve suddenly has a stench of insanity.

"Please don't send me back," he manages to choke out. His throat has clogged up. His eyes are watering. The young man is tilting his head at him, looking _apologetic_ , of all things. Corvo wants to rip his eyes out.

The Outsider extends a hand towards him. "You won't go back empty handed. I'll give you a pres-"

"PLEASE DON'T SEND ME BACK!" Corvo grabs the entity's wrist _(cold, too cold)_ and vainly attempts to crush the limb in his fist. He's shouting. He's begging. His yells turn into cries who turn into trembling, snivelling pleadings to not send him back, _please, don't send me back, I can't do it anymore please don't send me back_. His hand is burning. His heartbeat feels out of rhythm.

The Outsider lays a hand of Corvo's forehead, and everything goes black.

\---

When Corvo wakes up, he tastes blood, and smells rot.

He spits out the wet chunk of _whatisthis_ and slides his tongue across his teeth to clean up the taste. His body feels numb, and there's a distant recognition that his jaw isn't the right shape, but his jaw had lost any shape resembling "right" somewhere around the eighth tooth ripped off. Something is clawing at the back of his mind, like a rodent digging a hole through a wooden box. His heartbeat feels out of rhythm.

He looks around, and everything is huge. A breath, and the dawning realization that it's not the world that is too big, it's Corvo's body that is too small. Four paws and fur and long incisors and free motion and no pain. He feels a heavy weight in his chest. If he could, he'd be breaking down in tears of relief.

A few other rats are scampering around, feeding on the pile of meat in front of them - human-shaped, but so damaged by wounds and plague that it's barely recognizable as such. Long and filthy dark hair cover most of his face. _He found a way out._ Corvo nearly laughs at the stray thought (a way out, indeed) when he registers the voice.

Hearing voices is nothing new. Hearing _Jessamine_ is nothing new. But starting to imagine his lost love while in a fit of fever is very different from hearing her voice, clear as day, while he's fully lucid.

Behind Corvo's ribs, symmetrical to his heart, the weight suddenly feels much less metaphorical.

Corvo tentatively focuses on it - slows his breathing, feels not-his heartbeat - and yelps as the voice echoes - though what comes out is more of a squeak.

_Everything here has been forsaken._

Corvo turns around, and runs through a grid, away from the long, broken body dead from the plague in a prison cell.

\---

Turns out, when Jessamine _(?)_ said everything here had been forsaken, she wasn't speaking only of the prison cell. Void, she wasn't even speaking of Coldridge.

There's barely a prisoner left, and the few guards Corvo meets give him a wide berth. The place is decrepit, nothing left of the stronghold it used to be. All the while, Jessamine's voice murmurs of a guard's sick child who needs elixir, of an inmate who hung himself in his cell after he started coughing, of a whole section of the prison that collapsed, trapping seven unlucky fools underneath. The nibbling at the back of his mind is getting tiring.

Corvo tries talking to Jess - where is she, _what_ is she, is she still alive? How does she know all this? Why does his chest feels so heavy - but she only speaks of cold and numbness and distant, distant memories, evasive like dreams and smoke.

Corvo tells her that he loves her, that he misses her, that hearing her voice is worth every last second of agony he's been through. She doesn't answer, the beat of her heart not even stuttering from her sluggish rhythm.

Corvo stops asking.

\---

The rest of the city is as deserted as Coldridge was. The only movements are the swarms of rats running freely across the streets, and the carrion birds croaking on the rooftops. The only people are the cadavers piling up on the ground, serving as meal for the new urban wildlife. The only exceptions are the people who can sometimes be spotted running from the first floor of a building to another, using wooden planks settled across two balconies as a makeshift bridge to avoid the sea of rodents below. Corvo's head is starting to ache, a high-pitched squealing invading his thoughts alongside Jess' voice.

He's felt numb ever since he woke up in this body, but as he tries climbing a vent to get a better sight his back legs suddenly fail him, and it suddenly hits him that he's losing control. _You can't stay here for much longer_ , Jess' voice echoes, cool like quicksand in his panic.

A flash of white fur catches his attention in the corner of his eyes. Corvo flexes muscles that are not physical, and _jumps_.

He blinks a new pair of eyelids, feels a shudder of relief as he sees the previously-occupied rat fall backward and off the vent, and promptly loses consciousness.

\---

When Corvo wakes up, he doesn't recognize his surroundings.

He struggles a few seconds with what he guesses is the rat's spirit - but the bout of sleep _(unconsciousness)_ did him some good, and the rodent retreats quickly enough. _Condemned to fight at every turn, on the ground and in your mind._ Jess' voice throws him off-guard before the memories of the previous day come back.

The rat must have moved around while Corvo's mind rested, because they're now at the edge of the city. The road that used to lead out of town is now barricaded with military-grade equipment. Every few minutes, a weeper approaching the wall gets vaporized in a flash of electricity.

A soft, low melody makes the air vibrate. Corvo's left paw is buzzing. Jess' heart is beating stronger. Corvo mentally pokes at his host's brain, and its legs carry him away, following the runesong.

\---

The shrines feel safe.

They seem to calm down the unholy amalgamate of rat body, human mind and dead woman's memories that is now Corvo's existence. The proximity with the void strengthens the stitches that hold the whole thing together. In his chest, Jess's heart beats, still slow, but less sluggish.

Corvo tries talking to her again. Her answers stay the same, looping back into the same sentences, but her voice is soothing. It's better than the silence.

(He's worried, so worried about Emily.)

Finding the runes help. Corvo can hold his hosts longer and longer. Can see better. Though the walls, coins and food and cables shine. He can get from a place to another in the blink of an eye. He no longer risks getting mauled by an adventurous raven or a swarm of stronger rats.

He learns of what happened in his year and half of absence. The city was abandoned ( _Everything here has been forsaken,_ Jess repeats). The government officials skipped town and sealed Dunwall, leaving it to collapse on itself, waiting for the rats and the disease to eat each other. Emily, too, was evacuated. Burrows' very own puppet Empress.

Corvo starts chatting with Jess. She doesn't answer, but he can pretend she does. In his chest, her heart beats steadily, never faltering from its slow rhythm, precise and cold like clockwork.


	2. Chapter 2

It takes him weeks to find Emily.

He escapes Dunwall on the wings of a raven, after three failed flight attempts. He jumps from host to host until he reaches Driscol, where Burrows has hidden himself away, Emily in tow. Birds cover long distances, but after Corvo wakes up miles away from his intended path, he stops using them. He finds travelers following the road. Takes over their hounds. It works, until it's not enough.

The first time Corvo slips into a human skin, his mind screams. He doesn't remember how to stand upright, and as his legs fails the smell of Coldridge invades his nostrils and _he feels the hands of the guards on his arms, dragging him back to his cell while shattered pieces of bones dig into the tendons of his knees, and his right calf is bent, and his other foot is pointing in a direction that isn't supposed to be possible-_

He leaps back into a passing fly in panic, crushes the insect's mind and goes to hide in the folds of someone's hood. Jess' heart is silent, apart from its ever-steady beating.

\---

The second time Corvo slips into a human skin, he aims at someone who's already sitting down.

He doesn't fall over himself, but it's not much better. The man's mind yells in his head, much stronger and much more complex and much more aggressive than an animal's. Corvo persists, though. He's on known ground here.

Rat minds are fast and hard to take hold off, but easy to keep in grasp. Hagfish minds are smooth and slippery, body hard to control, but easy to stay in for long periods of time. Hound minds are heavy and solid, memories and training like dents at the surface of their brain that Corvo can grab to take hold of them.

Human minds are huge, clicking and beating with life, full of asperities and cracks in some places but slippery like oils in others. Treacherous, too. As Corvo wrangles his host's mind around in search of an opening, he rips some cracks open, tears some tissue apart. Memories that aren't his flash before his eyes. A small cottage surrounded by fields. Children running in a schoolyard. Tall white buildings. A catchy Morlish tune. The smell of hagfish soup. A dark-haired woman lying in a bed, skin paler than the sheets, and suddenly Corvo is _in the Tower's gardens, under the gazebo, and Emily's cries are fading in the distance, and Jessamine is heavy in his arms, and her breath is getting weaker, and the ground is red and the columns are red and the sky is red and red is pouring from his eyes-_

Corvo retreats into the man's hound, shaking and reeling, and pleads and begs Jessamine to tell him she's here, she's with him, that it's over and they're gonna find Emily and it'll be okay.

When Jessamine answers, it's to ask why she feels so cold.

\---

On the third try, Corvo succeeds in taking over a human body.

He's barely an adult yet, with less bad memories to fight Corvo back with, and while there isn’t much to use as hold, Corvo can just grab the teenager's mind and _dig_. His host howls, shudders, and at last retreats, letting Corvo invade his limbs.

Corvo takes it slow. Moves his fingers, his toes. Fights back the bile rising in his throat at the memory of his own extremities eaten by gangrene. Doesn't try standing up yet, and instead pokes at his host's brain until he finds his balance. He can move. He can move.

It feels wrong in ways that are much more obvious now that he's possessing a human. Being a rat is _supposed_ to feel wrong. Being a fish is supposed to feel wrong. But this body, closer to his original form than anything else he's possessed this far, just makes it obvious that it isn't his.

All his senses are off. His sense of touch is nearly numb, his nose picks up only half the smells it should, his vision is gray. The sounds are both muffled and echoing around him, like he's underwater.

His limbs are too short. His muscles are too weak. His hair aren't long enough to tickle his nape. His skin feels too tight around his body, like he's wrapped in bandages that cut off his circulation. Both his heartbeats are too loud in his ears.

Jess says something about the host. _He walks to Driscol for apprenticeship. His family needs the support._ Her voice soothes Corvo's mind, and he stays.

\---

Emily's location is heavily protected, but fortunately not kept secret.

They need to parade her around every once in a while. She's a symbol of hope for the people, and the last nail in the Empire's coffin as her presence cements Burrows' legitimacy. Everyone knows where she resides. Nobody can talk to her.

The dozens of guards and the tallboys and the watchtowers and the arc pylons would stop any person trying to break into the manor. But they don't stop a crow from landing clumsily on Emily's windowsill on a windy, cloudy day of the Month of Hearths.

He spotted Emily's small silhouette through the walls. Here, seeing her directly, he can barely recognize her. Every new detail he notices is like a stab to the soul.

She's grown up, more than he expected, and the time he spent rotting in a hole hits him more than ever. Her hair grew, now pinned back in an elaborate bun. She's wearing a dress (she never liked those, couldn't run in them). Her room is devoid of any souvenir from the Tower, no childish drawings on the walls, all her old toys replaced by new dolls and wooden animals.

She looks like Jess, imperial as she was when ruling over her court or giving a speech in parliament, wearing a mask of coldness that she dropped when in private. But Emily isn't at court, and she isn't ruling, and she is alone in her room and this isn't a mask.

\---

Corvo writes Emily a letter.

His control over the hand isn't precise enough and his handwriting is awful and this is taking way more focus than it should. But he persists through the rising headache and writes that he's alive, that she shouldn't believe whatever Burrows told her, that he didn't kill Jessamine, that Burrows ordered the hit, that he misses her a lot, that he's going to get her out of here.

By the time he's done, he has a splitting migraine and is on the verge of throwing up, but he has something to bring to his daughter.

\---

Getting the letter to Emily is a hassle, especially since he wants her to be alone when she reads it. He manages to possess the maid who brings her her correspondence and slips it among the rest of the letters. He then stops time, slips into a passing bird frozen mid-air outside the window and flies to her windowsill before time resumes. He shakes his feathers to ward off the mental exhaustion of overworking his powers, and settles to watch Emily.

She flips through the letters methodically, and frowns when she gets to Corvo's plain envelope. She opens, skids through it, and as her eyes land on the signature at the bottom, her face twists in fury.

 _Poor Emily! Her childhood is lost! She has become a pawn in the games of men!_ , Jess whispers, though Corvo barely hears her over the sound of his hope crumbling to dust.

He barely has a sense of touch anymore, and yet he's never felt as numb as he feels now, watching Emily tear apart the letter and throw the remains in the fireplace. She storms out of her room, presumably to give someone an earful about not properly checking her correspondence, and all Corvo can hear is static, like drops hitting the pavement in a downpour, and the steady, unchanging beating of Jess's heart while his own is being torn apart.

\---

Corvo is beyond fury.

He wants to break in the manor and take Emily away. He wants to find Burrows and shove his own intestines down his throat. But even waking up in the same place he's fallen asleep in is a hassle as his hosts try running away while he rests, and he can only possess weak people for a decent stretch of time, and his clumsy control over foreign bodies doesn't allow anything resembling fight.

He asks Jess, what should he do? _She grew tired of hiding her fears. She trusted the wrong people._ Jess was always the one who found ways without violence. _How I misplaced my trust! Now that I see so well, I know how truly blind I was._ Ways to convince, to persuade. _She has let go of her childhood things. Their comfort has run out._ She knew and understood people better than he ever did.

Whatever part of Jess that held that wisdom doesn't reside in the amputated organ that beats in Corvo's chest, and after a few minutes, she falls silent.

Corvo flies away.

\---

Corvo goes back to Dunwall.

It's ruined, but familiar. There is no crowd trying to step on him, no overseer's boxes that make him feel like his soul is pouring out of his nose and ears. There are shrines everywhere, built in haste as the last survivors disavowed the Abbey and turned to the Outsider in desperation. There are runes that make him feel stronger, singing bonecharms that he's taken to hoarding in little caches.

Jess keeps whispering, giving him the history of a building, an anecdote about a passing weeper, a new development on the situation outside. Sometimes Corvo talks to her, then shuts himself away, frustrated at her lack of responsiveness. Sometimes he gets so angry at this grotesque imitation of what Jess used to be that he doesn't address her for days.

It never last long, though. He always goes back to her, hoping in vain she'll give him a hint of what to do. Or at least a word about how Emily's doing, alone beyond these walls, trapped in a golden cage of pretty furniture and prettier lies.


	3. Chapter 3

He's following a runesong when he finds the murderer.

His memory has been battered by repetitive strikes to the head, followed by months of isolation, followed by months of permanent mental battle during which strangers’ memories assaulted him and mingled with his own. But even though the filthy red coat and angry facial scar only stir up a distant feeling of rage, the Heart knows exactly who the man is, and is quick to remind him.

_Why have you brought me here? Am I meant to forgive this man for what he did?_

The bitter accusation in her voice is the most emotion she's manifested in all the time he's had her by his side. There's a deep spike of pain as Corvo realizes that she remembers her death at this man's hands more clearly than she remembers peaceful evenings spent in the Tower with him.

When the murderer speaks, it's over Jess's furious whispers about death and violence and the off-tune hum of bonecharms. "You're not a weeper." It's not a question.

Corvo smiles. Blood oozes from his host's mouth. "I won't be in a minute."

Jessamine shudders in disgust. _Not him. Not the assassin._ Over the past months, Corvo has tried repeatedly to get her guidance. Her opinion. Now that she gives it, he no longer feels like listening. She's had her chance. She didn't take it.

Corvo jumps out of the weeper's skin, into a buzzing mind he wants to tear to shreds.

\---

Possessing the murderer feels different from any of Corvo's previous experiences. Maybe it's because he too is a Marked, maybe spending decades killing for coin shapes you mind into something unrecognizable. Probably both, if Corvo's being honest.

The murderer lashes out at the intrusion, with more violence and precision than anyone before him. Corvo feels the attack like a lash, burning across his thoughts. He screeches. The murderer doubles down on him, sharp edges digging into Corvo's willpower like a springrazor, opening his mind like a can of fish.

As Corvo feels his memories slip through the cracks and away from him, the assault halts. He can feel the man's surprise and recognition, followed by his complete shock when he also hears the Heart's furious outcries. Seizing the opportunity, Corvo shakes off his grip, and leaps back at him.

The murderer hisses when Corvo gets a grip on him, but doesn't strike back. In fact, he's displaying a spectacular amount of restraint. It feels heady, like spending weeks getting bitten by rats, and suddenly having a Tyvian wolf present his throat. (Somewhere around them, the Heart is spilling venom on the both of them, disgusted at the assassin's very existence and furious at Corvo for bringing her into this situation).

The man's mind is so broken up and badly mended that he's harder to manipulate than a hagfish's smooth, slippery brain. Where most people have asperities from bad experiences that Corvo can use as hold to pry them open, this man has pieces of steel half torn off, threatening to slice anyone who might try laying a hand on them. Inside, his mind is moving in fits and starts, like a badly oiled engine, creaking with lack of maintenance.

Corvo pats around, cutting himself on the sharp edges, until he finds a fresh wound (the memory of a girl in a red coat, a whaler's sword impaling her). He slides in, finds leverage, and _yanks_.

\---

As a kid, Corvo would watch otters use rocks to break open river krusts. They would snap the shell apart before picking the inside, feasting on the edible flesh and discarding the rest. What he's doing to Daud's mind at the moment heavily reminds him of that.

He breaks apart the razor-sharp barriers around Daud's mind, tears away the rotting emotions and throws them aside, and devours whatever he finds useful. The knowledge of the Void, the fighting experience, the weapon expertise, the control over his body, he takes for himself. The drowning regret, the bitter self-depreciation, the anger and tiredness as he walks in a muddy manor, the fond memories of a group of masked people, the footsteps of a teenage girl running on a rooftop, he casts away to be dissolved in the Void.

Throughout it all, Daud screams.

_\---_

When Corvo's done, he takes a break to admire his work.

Pieces of feelings and memories are floating around him like confetti. In front of him, what used to be Daud lays, flayed open like a dissected whale, bare bones exposed. Some bits are still moving, pulsing like a heart or ticking like a clockwork.

Corvo himself is in bad state - for all that Daud let himself get devoured alive, his spirit was full of sharp things that tore at Corvo while he was rummaging through. Void and energy drip sluggishly out of him, and he feels some of his memories getting distant. He tries focusing a bit, and can't remember his sister's face, nor Emily's seventh birthday. He frowns. Those felt important. Behind him, the Heart is back to beating in its usual rhythm.

As Corvo takes hold of his new body, the pain shifts. He hasn't felt physical ache since he left Coldridge - all his hosts gave him was numbness. Now, the Void courses freely through the muscles, giving him a control he had missed more than anything. His limbs react without delay. He sees in the full color range. He can hear the sea despite being a mile away. Even the size change of his body, compared to his original long limbs, is minimal.

The exhaustion manifests himself physically now. More headache and muscle tremors, less torturous and repetitive thoughts. The turmoil of new information becomes easier to set aside for now.

Corvo curls on himself, and passes out.

\---

Upon waking up, Corvo nearly chokes in panic.

He can't feel the mind of his host and for a second he wonders if he's finally been ejected, condemned to float in a state of bodyless unlife until he fades to nothing. He feels frantically around his own brain until he finds the low sound of what used to be Daud, like the slow breathing of a dying beast.

As Daud's- Corvo's body wakes up, the sensations assault him. The light is too bright behind his eyelids, and he reflexively rolls away from it. A mistake, as the movement makes his stomach churn and bile rises in his throat. He takes a deep breath, and that's a second mistake- the relents of the rotting city hit his oversensitive nostrils, and Daud's last meal ends up on the dilapidated carpet.

The slightest physical aches feel like his skin is getting put through a cheese grater - the stomach acid burning his throat, the wood shards from the floor, whatever scrapes Daud had on himself before Corvo took over. His whole body spasms on reflex and the pain doubles up.

The minutes it takes him to get used to his new (old) senses are excruciating. Several times he tries retreating into the back of his brain, only to be urgently sent back at the forefront as no other mind takes over in his stead. He's sent back to a year prior, when he had to train himself not to move an inch even when all his instincts screamed at him to run. Back then his body had been a grotesque mess of bone shards and torn tendons, and the slightest movements triggered a vicious circle of unbearable pain and reflexive muscle spasms.

The Heart is silent through the whole ordeal, contempt rolling off it in waves at Corvo's choice of vessel.

When Corvo finally manages to blink his eyes open, the light outside has barely moved, even though it feels like hours have passed. It takes him a few more minutes to manage small movements, fingers wiggling, then moving his head. All the while, shards of wood dig into the side of his face.

When full body movements get in the realm of the possible, Corvo crawls to the side and sits up against a wall.

He needs a bath, badly. Whatever hygiene (or lack thereof) Daud had managed to maintain up to this point was evidently ruined in the possession process and subsequent panic. The stench of sweat and bile exhaling from his clothes is mixing with the ever-present rot of the dying city, renewing Corvo's nausea. At least the town is calm - no busy crowd assaulting his ears. All he can hear is the croaking of birds and the squeals of rats fighting in the streets below.

Something else is wrong, though, like he's forgotten something important. In the emotional mess that was this morning, he hasn't had much time to put his thoughts in order - and he badly needs to do so. Assess the damage, patch up whatever wasn’t destroyed in his struggle with Daud, and take a better look at what he's retrieved from the assassin's memories. In his chest, the Heart seems to calm down, resigning itself to the situation, unable to move from Corvo's ribcage.

\---

Corvo's taking a well-deserved soak in the Wrenhaven when it hits him.

He was delighted to learn from Daud's memories that the Mark(s?) gives him a full immunity to the plague, something he suspected but hadn't been willing to put to the test. This body is comfortable, moves naturally at his command, is strong and doesn't show any sign of rejection. It'd be a shame to lose it to bleeding eyes.

After over a year of quarantine, the Wrenhaven has lost its oily pollution, choosing instead to carry dead bodies towards the sea. It's a gruesome sight, but one that Corvo is long used to, and that won't stop him from getting himself clean at last.

Waddling across the water brings some memories back to the surface, and Corvo updates himself on what happened during his years of absence. He managed to gather some news while body-hopping, but the constant mental battle didn't lend itself well to a good memory, and his knowledge of the latest events feels like a moth-eaten curtain. Burrows rising at the head of the government, supported by the Abbey and the Parliament, the mental map of the flooded Chamber of Commerce, the plague getting out of hand, a visit from the Outsider - a foreign feeling of anger flickers at the back of Corvo's mind at this - witches? A cold antipathy seeps in Corvo's bones as he goes over the threat assessment Daud made back then, and everything seems to grind to a halt as Emily's name comes up.

Corvo grinds his teeth as he riffles through the memories, vaguely angry at himself for being so careless when pillaging Daud's mind. His recollection of the hunt for Delilah is now missing some chunks, and Corvo has trouble putting everything in chronological order. Everything between the Outsider's initial visit _(anger)_ and meeting Delilah's statue is lost. A poem comes to mind, and Corvo really hopes he's misinterpreting its words, but he's walking using another man's legs and he's intimately aware of how _possible_ permanent possession is, and what it does to the host's mind.

He presses on, skips to the image of Delilah standing on a makeshift roof while his own arms cradle a heavy weight. Skips again to a mental map of a flooded manor, skeletal hounds gnawing at his heels and women with ashy skin digging thorny fingers into his flesh. Reaching a painting studio, his body covered in blood and more hurt than he'd have preferred.

Delilah isn't there. Left recently, too, paint still fresh on an unfinished portrait of Emily - there's barely any color yet, but it's bound to be vibrant. Another few hours skip, and the manor is burned to the ground.

There's a knot rising up Corvo's throat as he presses through Daud's memories of the following months, desperately looking for a sign that Daud's hunt succeeded at some point. He finds more about the plague worsening, Burrows _(simmering contempt)_ packing up to Driscol with Emily, and - there. A couple skirmishes with witches as they try breaking into the understaffed Dunwall Tower _(regret)_. Corvo digs deeper, but Delilah remains elusive, despite the losses among her witches. More time goes missing, the city gets quarantined, the masked people disappear from Daud's memories _(loneliness)_. The witches make themselves scarce, destroying their hideouts becomes impossible and the trail gets colder and colder and colder.

Weeks go missing. The sound of the void rings, at last _(hope)_ a hint that someone with power is around. He tracks it down, staying away from the sea of rats in the streets, and only finds what must be the last weeper standing in this hellhole _(disappointment)_.

He squints at it.

It's not a weeper.

_\---_

Daud, the useless bastard, failed all the way and then some more. Corvo is tempted to go kick the last shreds of his minds into more of a mush than it already is, but the relief it would bring would be rather minimal given the man's unresponsiveness. He does it anyway. The Heart beats steadily as ever, and Corvo feels his rage double up at the lack of reaction. That's its- her- _Jessamine_ 's daughter in question here, and _Jessamine_ 's childhood friend, and why hadn't she told him about her? Unless she did, and the memory dripped away somewhere between a dark prison cell and a rat's meal.

Corvo shakes his head and steals a whaleskin coat from a recently-deceased weeper to replace the filthy red one Daud used to cling to. Still simmering in rage, he kicks the corpse off the wooden boat he was lying in and into the river, and the hagfishes are onto it in an instant. The sight is soothing. _He had a good heart. In another life, you would have been good friends._ The Heart's whisper is lost to the sound of the hagfishes' jaws.


	4. Chapter 4

All the rage in the world can't make distances shorter, and even in a functional body, the trip to Driscol takes two weeks. By the fourth day, Corvo's anger had dwindled down to nothing, growing fear taking its place. By the time he reaches his destination, he's anxious enough that his fidgeting nearly attract the guards' attention, and wouldn't it be a hassle to explain the face he's wearing.

The town is just as it was last time he was there, but it registers differently with his new senses - bustling crowds that grate his ears, the biting wind from the sea. No invasive vines, no hollow hound skulls, not even the hum of runesong. He makes a beeline to the main street, where they sometimes parade Emily in a railcar to wave and smile at the people. There’s a crowd gathered there. With a bit of luck-

He settles on a balcony, watching as an emblazoned railcar approaches in the distance. Blinking void into his eyes, he spots a small silhouette in the vehicle, framed by guards.

When the railcar reaches the building Corvo has picked as a perch, he clenches his fist and time crawls to a stop. He blinks down, and takes a look at his daughter, two years after she last saw him.

She looks exhausted. Expert makeup and perfect hairdo and impeccable dresses can't hide the results of several sleepless nights. She doesn't have the energy to maintain the regal coldness she displayed during Corvo's last visit. But she's alive, and still herself. No cursed marking on her hand, no foreign smile on her face. She's still here. She's still here.

Time resumes as Corvo is about to punch through the car's window and carry Emily away. Instead, he has to quickly blink away before the arc pylon on the railcar's roof does its job and reduces him to cinders.

He watches Emily being driven away, mind reeling in frustration and building up infiltration plans. He's strong now. He'll get to her. He'll save her.

\---

Getting to Emily takes Corvo way more time than he would have wanted.

He can no longer possess a bird and fly to her window. Or maybe he could, but there's a decent chance he'd have to leave his current body behind, and he's not ready to take the risk. Not only does he refuse to go back to random blackouts and uncoordinated limbs, but having a functional body is his only chance to actually get away with Emily.

So he throws himself at the manor's defenses, once, twice, three times, but Burrows must be especially paranoid because the security is airtight. Arc pylons everywhere, overseers patrolling with their boxes, hounds snapping at his heels, enough tallboys to start a mechanical circus. Void, even the regular guards think about looking up. It's as if they're expecting someone like him. (Burrows used to employ Daud, maybe he was aware of his abilities, though the thought makes Corvo feel oddly offended.)

They find Corvo's victims at each new failure, and they up the security in consequence. After a fourth attempt nearly gets him toasted in a wall of light, the skinned wreck of Daud's mind musters enough disapproval that Corvo opts to sit back and plan it out instead of risking becoming hound food.

The Heart whispers about the construction of the walls of light, the tallboys' weaknesses, the guards' darkest secrets. For once, Corvo is grateful.

\---

It takes Corvo two days to blackmail an officer into sending him intel, and four more days for an opportunity to arise. Apparently Emily's state is getting worse, because she forbade that the music boxes be played in her presence, the discordant music making her headaches worse. But it means Corvo can reach her.

He has her routine memorized. In the afternoon, she has tea in the gardens near the canal. It's only reachable by swimming ten minutes without breathing, but Corvo has a bonecharm to deal with that. Without the Overseer's music to stop him from bending time, getting rid of Emily's guards will be a walk in the park.

When Corvo emerges from the water, soaked and freezing _(and isn't that a sensation he hadn't missed)_ , Emily isn't there.

That can't be right. Emily takes tea in the afternoon in the gardens by the canal. That's how it's been for the past ten months, according to both the guard's intel and his own observations. He looks around, checking for panicking guards or any sign of an unexpected event, but all he can see are the soldiers making their usual patrols through the park.

It's gonna be noisy and he'll have to be fast, but there's no time to rethink the infiltration. Hiding behind the thick hedges, he approaches a pair of guards until he's in pulling range. The poor watchman has just enough time to see a crossbow bolt rip through his friend's skull before he's tethered towards Corvo at full speed. Corvo catches him by the arm, the man's bone cracking with the shock. Corvo shoves his hand on his mouth before the poor sod starts yelling.

"Where is the Empress", he growls, and he didn't pick the right target because the man bites his fingers in retaliation. Corvo yanks his hand off, and the guard starts yelling for help. _The hard way then._

Corvo's brutal. He can hear other patrols approaching, hounds barking in the distance, no time for subtleties. He breaks the man's bones, bends his joints in all the wrong angles, aims at the ribs and the hips, places that make it impossible to move without pain. The heart whispers of an old fear of drowning, and Corvo shoves three fingers down the man's throat until he's nearly choking on his own bile, memories not his own indicating when to stop to avoid damage to the vocal cords.

The guard may be well-paid, may be afraid of Burrows, may even be loyal to Emily, but he didn't sign up for this. He wheezes out Emily's location - her room, she's barely left since yesterday - and Corvo slits his throat. He stops time, blinks away from the soldiers who are now nearly in shooting distance, and makes his way toward the main building. Toward his daughter.

(He stops to throw up his lunch on the way, the guard's screams echoing against his skull like the walls of an interrogation room).

When he reaches the right corridor, Corvo stops time just long enough to shoot bolts through all of the six guards' heads. When time resume, the sound of mangled flesh rings out and they collapse in unison.

The walk towards Emily's room feels like a dream. The sun is bright outside, the corridor intersected with long shadows. Thin dust is flying in the light, and the air is warm, heavy with the scent of the flowers outside. A light breeze from an open window makes the curtain move.

Corvo reaches Emily's door. It's ajar. A blink of void gaze tells her she's at her desk. There's a humming coming from inside.

He pushes the door.

The room hasn't changed much from what it was during his last visit, except for the seasonal roses now decorating her table. His footsteps are soft on the fur carpet, and she hasn't heard him, still writing at her desk with gloved hands, her back to him. He calls out, voice cracking.

"Emily."

She doesn't startle as he expected, taking the time to finish her line and put away her pen before turning in her chair to face him.

"Emily?"

She smiles. It's wrong.

"Long time no see, little toad."

Corvo's world shatters.

\---

There's static in Corvo's ears as he tries staying in comfortable denial for as much time as he can. His daughter, his little girl with whom he played hide-and-seek with, for whom he literally laid life and limb, is standing in front of him and she's fine, she was fine two weeks ago she still is now, it's her, it's her, she's _right there-_

But the two other residents of his skull don't have the luxury of higher cognitive thoughts, and their combined anger kick Corvo out of his stupor right to the next stage of grief. He looks down at the girl who's walked towards him, the witch who's stolen the last thing that mattered in this world. She looks up at him with a stranger's guile, her features twisted in a stranger's smiles, her left hand reaches out - and he sees red.

That's not his daughter.

Waking up in someone else's body is a hassle the first few days, as Corvo is intimately aware of. The girl is sluggish, powers slow to react, and she's expecting Daud. Corvo's not who she prepared for.

She took his daughter.

Corvo's heart is slow in his ribcage, and for a second he thinks he used his powers without thinking but the room is still golden with sunlight and not the washed-off gray of suspended time. Jessamine's heart beats, back to its usual rhythm after its unusual fit of anger. There's a low rumble of fury coming from somewhere below, like an interminable roll of thunder. Corvo draws his sword out.

She's wearing his _daughter_ like a _meatsuit_.

Thorns are digging in his forearms. Useless poison starts to run its course through his veins. The fur carpet is getting redder like a blooming rose, there's a gurgling sound coming from under him, the nails clawing at his face are getting weaker. He keeps the pressure on Delilah's throat, holding her down until the blood runs out from the gaping wound at her neck, his right knee is on her leg to keep her from kicking him off. Brown eyes stare up at him, go glassy, and there's a last spat of blood sliding through her teeth before she goes still.

Corvo lets go of her throat at last, fingers stiff with the effort and barely obeying him. He moves his knee off her leg, slides his sword out of the girl's throat with a sickening noise. Looks at her.

And then grabs his sword with both hands and proceeds to cut the girl's head clean off what's left of her neck. He can't- he can't take the risk.

As the girl's head rolls to the side, there's a snide laugh of victory coming from the back of his mind, and the ever-steady beating of the heart, never changing.

\---

Corvo came to take Emily away from this place, and he's taking Emily away from this place.

He makes a shroud out of the bed's linens, wraps his little girl as best he can. He tries tying her head with the rest of her, but it won't stay in place, and he doesn't want it to get damaged, so he ends up wrapping it in the pillowcase. Kneeling next to the bundled body, he ties the fabric to his belt, fingers shaking with the adrenaline drop, and as he wraps his arms around Emily to pick her up the first sobs come out.

He tries, he tries to get to his feet and carry his daughter away, but his leg muscles are cramped and refuse to obey him and ugly sounds are coming out of his mouth. The tears flow down, blurring his vision, he chokes on them and bury his face in the linen. Emily's dead. Emily's dead.

He doesn't know how long he stays like that; it can't be too long if nobody's rushed in because of the commotion yet. Regardless, he can't stay here, and eventually the wish to wait for the execution squad washes out and his muscles unclench. He rises to his feet, Emily in his arms, swallows down his tears, sniffles, swallows down more tears, and walks to the window.

For the third and last time, Corvo flees from the manor, carrying his ruined world against him as the city lives on below.


	5. Chapter 5

Corvo's laying Emily to rest when the witches find them.

He's picked an isolated cavern dug in the side of a cliff, overlooking the sea. It's unattainable without either Void powers or a lot of rope, and the hole in the rocks is invisible from the above. Below, the waves crash against the cliffside, sharp reefs preventing boats from approaching. They'll never find her here.

Unless, of course, Corvo's been followed, which he apparently was. The women are still wearing the colorful dresses they had at Brigmore manor, but their skin has lost its unnatural tint, and the vines in their clothing are no longer writhing like sluggish snakes. Cut off from their mistress, they're just humans, and Corvo's way beyond that.

He throws one out of the cave's entrance to crash on the rocks below, and as the two others are still recovering from the brutal display, he punches the next one square in the face. She goes down, not quite knocked out yet, and he tethers the third one just long enough to break her leg.

Threatening one of them makes the other positively chatty. They're not even here for revenge; just needed Emily's body, and Corvo nearly breaks more bones at the thought of them getting their hands on his little girl. What would they even need her for - Delilah's as dead as humanly possible, but that's the thing, really. Nothing in this entire fiasco falls in the categories of "human" or "possible". He'd had that feeling too, that inspired him to be zealous in Delilah's execution. To the like of them, there are ways around death. There's a lot he doesn't know.

A lot of which he could find a use to, as well.

His blade inches closer to the witch's throat, the edge biting ever so slightly into the skin. He squints at her companion.

"Tell me more."

\---

Over a year in Coldridge, weeks of travel between cities, months of waiting for an opportunity. Corvo's no stranger to bidding his time. So what if his new objectives take years to complete. Emily's not gonna feel it anyway. He has time.

Walking around death is a fine line. The other heart in Corvo's chest is a proof of how tricky it is. Even the Outsider himself isn't able of bringing back more than an echo trapped in an abomination of flesh and clockwork. Unless he did it on purpose; that, Corvo can't know, but something at the back of his mind can't set aside the possibility.

The witches seemed to have a more solid plan. But Delilah had prepared in advance for that possibility, and their coven is much more knowledgeable in the intricacies of the Void than Corvo is, even with Daud's leftover memories. It takes a while to hunt down their leaders and tear their secrets out of them, but again, he has time.

The hardest part is keeping Emily in a workable state. The natural cold of the Imperial Crypt where Corvo has her hidden isn't enough to counter the decay. For a while Corvo makes do with Daud's surprisingly extensive medical knowledge, but then he must turn to salvaged books about embalming and magical preservation rituals.

It takes Corvo a full year before he has a decent grasp on the inner working of the Void. There are quite a few essays on the fate of a spirit after its death. Restful spirits will dissolve, troubled souls will roam the void until they ultimately break down. Delilah's plan relied on being recuperated shortly after her death, before she became too damaged.

Using the ritual a year after Emily's passing would probably not be as successful. But it's _technically_ the right process, simply with a more... scattered target. It's just going to take a bit more calibration.

The heart has been incredibly useful in Corvo's search, guiding him through the Academy's library, into the basements of underground cults, and occasionally whispering about the Void's secrets. It proves its worth once again when Corvo asks it about some of the corpses littering Dunwall's streets. How they lived their live. How peaceful was their death. How long since their last breath. He needs proper test material.

Corvo's first attempts are properly ineffective. He can feel the void shifting, but it slams closed as soon as he reaches out for his target. He's starting to get frustrated when he finally feels a progress. The veil opening minutely, allowing him to peek through. Not enough to shift around, but he'll get there.

He does get there. He's not quite sure how long has passed anymore - he spends most of his time by the Crypt now, and the repeated rituals make him lose his sense of time. But at some point, he pushes against the veil, stretch it open, and grabs through.

It's immediately obvious that sticking a spirit into a body is an art in and of itself. Keeping a grip on a soul is like holding a fistful of sand - no matter how tightly you hold, there's gonna be some loss. And that's before even reaching the part of making the uncooperative spirit stick to the physical body. The woman's heart beats for a few seconds, then she lets out a scream closer to nail on chalkboard than anything human, and she dies blurting out an unholy mess of blood and black ooze through all her facial orifices. Corvo's seen a lot, but even he has to grimace at the sight of it.

Regardless of the necessary clean-up, it's a success. The end of the line is getting close. Just a few more tries.

The following attempts have their ups and downs, but overall, Corvo's making progress. They stay alive longer. Lose less of themselves on the way. After each new try, Corvo asks the heart what it can tell about the current guinea pig. Jess's voice has the same empty, vaguely sad ring as usual when it answers with incomplete knowledge and shattered memories.

As the days pass, the test subjects get more stable. Stay alive for several minutes. The heart can gather more coherent thoughts about them. Some even have time to regain consciousness and say a few disjointed sentences before they drop dead. Minutes of life turn into hours, insane babbling turn into organized speech. After one of them panics and tries gouging Corvo's eyes out, he starts tying them down to the table.

\---

Eventually, one of them doesn't die.

It's a young woman whose body Corvo found locked in a basement in a house flooded with rats. She probably locked herself in to avoid being devoured, never found a way out and ended up dying of thirst. The dryness of the room preserved her body well enough that Corvo didn't have much patching up to do.

This one doesn't panic, fortunately enough. They don't always. Some scream and yank wildly at their restraints, some say nothing and stare blankly, some start asking questions in a clipped voice, some start commenting with an empty tone eerily close to the heart's whispers. Some do all of that in succession. This one turns unblinking eyes at Corvo and asks where she is.

Corvo answers quietly - they're in a room in Dunwall Tower, not far from the Crypt's entrance - and moves to check her vitals. Her heartbeat and breathing are slow, but present; there's a minor tremor in her right leg, and her fingers are opening and closing in jerky movements, like a miscalibrated automaton. Overall, it's one of Corvo's best work.

Corvo keeps her tied down - they tend to be unpredictable - and keeps answering her questions. Her voice changes pitch at random intervals, sometimes jumping up or down an entire octave halfway through a word. Her left fingers calm down, the tremor gains her whole lower body, but no sign of life-threatening symptoms.

Corvo noticed some time ago that the resuscitated don't seem to experience pain. Or hunger. Or thirst. The woman still shows signs of dehydration after a few hours, and fortunately she's cooperative enough that he doesn't have to force water down her throat. At least the digestive process is still functional. If it weren't, Corvo had a backup plan based on scientific notes he found in an abandoned textile mill, but he'd rather not get to that point.

A day passes, and she's still alive. Only a couple incidents - a sudden drop in blood pressure easily stabilized with a bit of magic, and a panic attack where Corvo lets her shout herself to exhaustion. Besides that, she keeps her food down, is mostly coherent, and she even manages to walk across the room when Corvo lets her off the table for a test.

Another day go by. Corvo now keeps her in the cell in the Torturer's old room, where she can move around without being a flight risk. Her movements are still erratic, but she sleeps, she eats, she drinks. She only tries to bash her own skull against the wall once. Corvo even manages to make her talk about some of her past life. Her memory seems riddled with holes, and her emotional reaction is out of sync half the time, but it's not that bad; Corvo himself has that kind of issue, and he didn't even die in the first place.

Corvo lets an entire week go by, during which he sets up a full care routine to keep the woman alive. Feed her, make sure she sleeps, manage her mood swings, stop her from accidentally hurting herself. The last one is the hardest. She _doesn't feel pain_. She once bites a whole knuckle off her finger while eating her food. Corvo has to sew it back and expend some precious energy into reconnecting the nerves.

After ten days and no new development, Corvo declares the experiment a success and shoots the woman in the back of the head.

Time to move onto the real thing.

\---

Corvo makes sure to get ready before bringing Emily back. He gets a full night of rest, eats a decent meal, washes himself. He's wiping the grim from the past weeks off his face when it hits him.

Emily's not going to recognize him.

The overgrown hair and scruffy beard he's currently sporting are actually doing him a favor, in the sense that they conceal most of Daud's features. But even if Emily _somehow_ managed to miss the trademark scars, they just - Corvo looks _nothing_ like Daud. Different hair color, different skin tone, different build - Corvo can probably hide that he's wearing Emily's kidnapper, but she will never recognize her father in here.

Corvo audibly growls at the thought. This is not the time to turn tail. He's come so far, _so fucking far_ , went through every hoop and trial and circle of fire the world threw at him, and he's getting his daughter back. She's just gonna take a little longer to convince. Nothing more than a setback.

He takes time to look presentable, combs his hair, trims his beard, gets fresh clothing. He needs a good first impression. Hopefully that'll reduce the chance of Emily panicking when she wakes up and sees him. With a bit of luck, she'll even be in a pliant mood. Those who woke up like that always were the easiest to handle.

He takes a last deep breath before leaving his quarters, and walks down to the Crypt to get his daughter.


	6. Chapter 6

Corvo's prepared the room the day before. He's cleaned everything, laid a clean blanket over the table, brought some padding for the restraints. He grimaces as he ties Emily's body to the table - he'd rather not have to do that, but he doesn't want her hurting herself. He's put a lot of effort into making Emily's body as comfortable as possible - washed her, brushed her hair, put her in fresh clothes that reminds him of her old favorite outfit. He's done his best to repair the damage to her neck, but it was so mangled that even now it's held together by thread and dark magic. He gave her a silk scarf to hide the damage. He doesn't want her touching it first thing upon waking up.

The ritual starts well. Corvo pushes against the veil, opening a breach and stretching it open like he's done dozens of times. He concentrates on Emily, on his memory of her, on the little girl lying in front of him. Afternoons playing hide-and-seek, laughter as she ran in the corridors away from her fuming tutor, favorite pastries, huffs of boredom as she tried reading through _the History of Gristol_ , large brown eyes as she asked him to read her a pirate story. Memories who made him push through the dark cells of Coldridge. Emily. His little girl.

He can feel her in the Void, and that's _good_ , because there was a good chance that she'd already dissolved. But she didn't die peacefully. She was never at rest.

Which is not to say that a year beyond the veil has left her intact.

Her mind is all over the place, for all that this is even a _place_ Corvo's sifting through. There are shards of her scattered across miles of empty expanses, rocks of memories floating between a passing whale and never-ending coldness. Corvo grits his teeth. This is gonna take a while.

To start somewhere, he reaches out for what seems like a sizable part, and horror dawns on him as it starts disintegrating as soon as he touches it. He distantly hears himself make a pained sound as he scrambles to salvage what he can and only find himself with ashes slipping through his metaphorical fingers. He chokes on his own breath as dust flows away, out of reach.

It's alright. It's alright. It was just a piece. He never thought he'd recover everything anyway. He can feel some pieces have already faded away anyway, others too far down the Void to be reached. He just has to be _very careful_ with what he has left.

One deep, shaky breath later, Corvo's moving onto another piece. Something smaller, easier to manipulate. He approaches it with the same care one would use to manipulate a butterfly, and slowly, _very slowly_ \- there. He draws it to him, packs it down like a sand sculpture, until he feels it gaining some substance. He can do it. He can do it.

He chases down as much of Emily as he can. The biggest pieces first, her defining memories, her sense of self, her memories of home, of her family - of Jessamine - of _him_. Then some less crucial but still important parts, her favorite foods, the names of her dolls, time spent learning her lessons, the sound of seagulls that you can hear from the Tower's gazebo. Corvo slips up at times - lets some shards slip away from him, reflexively grips down on a piece that immediately shatters. He loses the nicknames Emily gave to the Tower's hounds, her knowledge of odd whale facts, her memories of her old nanny.

At some point, he stumbles upon memories of the time she spent in Driscol, with Burrows telling her lies after lies the whole time she was there. Corvo thinks of shattering that part. Then he remembers how last time he tore apart a mind without thinking it through, he lost some memories that proved crucial later down the line. _Then_ he remembers Emily throwing away his letter without even reading it, head full of Burrows' manipulations.

He breaks the memories apart. It dissolves into ashes, floating around until a nearby whale's breath blows them away. Corvo presses on.

He finds more memories. Salvages what he can. He can feel himself trembling under the effort. He's been at it for hours, holding what he's retrieved of Emily in his palm and struggling not to accidentally crush her in a reflexive move.

He finds red tapestries, heady perfumes, women with heavy make-up. A dark, lonely room with boarded windows and a locked door. The Golden Cat.

That part, he also shatters.

There's barely anything left now - just fragments he has to fish for in the bluish light, so little that he wonders if it's worse the effort. He's exhausted. After he accidentally lets go of a piece for the fourth time in a row, he calls it quit. He'll do with what he has.

The next step is fitting Emily's soul in her body. And it becomes very obvious very quick that this part isn't in the bag either. Her body isn't in an ideal state to begin with. And her soul - it's not even a single unit. It's like trying to hold together a puzzle with half the pieces missing. You can guess the picture, but you can't move it around. What Corvo has in his hold is simply not fit for life.

Corvo feels a wave of pity from the back of his mind and - how _dare_ he. _He_ brought that whole mess, by himself, the _entire way down_ , and wasn't even able to fix it apart for being a _suitable meat suit_ and _how dare he of all people pity him, and Emily, when Jessamine's heart and soul won't even say a word at this horror show-_ But the Heart hosts a torn piece of soul, even smaller than what Corvo salvaged here, and yet the heart beats and it speaks and it even feels sometimes. So there has to be something to get out of the mess that is Emily.

So what if the pieces don't fit together. So what if it breaks down at the slightest touch. Corvo reconnected a severed head to a mangled neck. He can stitch a soul back together.

He shakes his head, chasing the exhaustion away, and goes back to work.

\---

Corvo tries to keeps it organized at first. Emily's memories of him, next to her memories of Jess, he sticks her feeling of _home_ somewhere close, then adds a boat trip on the Wrenhaven, tries to make her lessons fit somewhere near, but it stops making any kind of sense when he tries adding the smell of apricot tartlet in the vicinity and accidentally tears apart Emily's taste for climbing in the process.

So he gives up trying to make _sense_ , and simply sews together parts that are unlikely to break under the connection. He has to bend and twist a few things, breaks and polishes off some asperities that make the whole thing unstable, takes the opportunity to discard some of the least palatable segments. Her feeling of absence when he was gone for two months. That visit at the Academy's horror gallery that gave her nightmares for days. Her persisting fear of spiders. He doesn't feel like spending precious energy to staple _those_ to an already unsteady construct.

Emily is taking shape when Corvo gets to a familiar memory. Familiar in the sense that he's spent months replaying it in his mind in the deepest pit of Coldridge, and even had the uncanny experience of seeing it from another point of view a few months later. It's a gazebo under a cloudless sky, the smell of the sea, whispers of the Void, lifeless mask lenses. A little girl's scream. The stench of blood. Jessamine's hacked breathing. A wave of regret and a phantom feeling of panic rise in unison from deep within his skull. He swats the pestering emotions away.

Corvo has a moment of hesitation - his first reflex is to eliminate the memory entirely, spare her the trauma, but it's also the last time she saw her mother, and does he really want to take that away from her?

On the other hand, it's also the only time Emily saw Daud, and if Corvo can avoid her horrific flashbacks every time she looks at his new face... And who wants _that_ to be their last memory of their mother anyway. Corvo's seen his own mother decaying and broken. He doesn't want that for his daughter.

He crushes the memory down.

\---

Corvo's sense of time is shot to the Void and beyond, but he's pretty sure he's been at it for a full day when he finally declares Emily complete.

The result is- well. To spin on the previous metaphor, this is like a puzzle held together with staples and duct tape - the colors are familiar, but there's nothing left of the big picture. But it holds together. It _works_.

Connecting the wires from Emily's soul to her body is tricky, but nothing compared to putting her soul back together. A last bout of soldering to make sure it stays in place, and he can feel Emily's body starting back up. Heartbeat and breathing picking up, from a cold nothing to a slow rhythm that he knows will never really accelerate beyond that point. Corvo's legs give up on him and he collapses near the makeshift operation table, hand still on her chest so he can keep track of her pulse and breathing.

He stays like this for several minutes, eyes closed, forehead against the blanket, just listening to his daughter _living_. He can feel mild tremors gaining her limbs, hears dull sounds, raises his head to check that nothing serious is happening - but it's just her legs jerking mechanically against the restraints. Nothing he hasn't seen before; it'll be manageable once she's awake.

It takes a while for Emily to wake up - Corvo's nearly fallen asleep by her side when he feels her breathing change minutely. He blinks, licks his dehydrated lips and finally raises his head towards Emily.

She's staring straight at him, brown eyes wide open, neck twisted to look at Corvo. That particular angle makes him grimace internally as he calculates the strain it puts on her stitches.

He slowly turns his full body towards her, struggles to keep himself nonthreatening when all he really wants is to hug her close. Swallows his saliva in a vain attempt to stop his voice from cracking when he speaks.

"Emily?"

She doesn't reply immediately, and for a few seconds Corvo wonders if she simply won't talk, then he wonders if she'll _ever_ talk, then he wonders if he screwed up when he fixed her vocal chords- but she speaks up.

"Who are you?"

Her voice is small, higher than he remembers, slightly shaky. Toneless, too. Hearing it brings Corvo to tears. It's been _years_.

The words register eventually, and he nearly breaks down before he remembers _that fucking face_ , and he realizes that it's good news she doesn't recognize him.

"Emily, it's Corvo," he answers softly. His voice wavers towards the end.

"You don't look like Corvo." Same pitch, same tone, no brutal cracks or change of timbre. Seems like she'll stick with that voice for at least a while.

She's still not blinking. He'll have to remind her to do that. It's not good for her eyes.

"A lot happened." His voice _does_ crack. "I don't look the same. But I'm Corvo. Inside, I'm the same."

She stares at him. Not a frown, not a twitch of lip. Corvo bites his lip. Looks like the facial expressions got lost on the way.

Eventually, she gives an answer. "I'm happy to see you, Corvo." She was just thinking, probably. Weighting the truth of Corvo's words. She's always been a sensible one. Got it from her mother.

Speaking of. "Corvo. Where is Mother?" Of course. She doesn't remember that face, so she doesn't remember that she's dead at all. Corvo's halfway through building an appropriate way to break the news to her when he hears the heartbeat.

There's an easier answer to that question.

"She's right there with me, Emily," he answers, one hand over his chest. "You can't see her, but she's with us, I promise."

Finally, Emily's lips twitch. A smile stretches across her face, slow like she has to activate every facial muscle one after the other. When it- when it _stabilizes_ , it's a wide smile that shows all her teeth. She still hasn't blinked.

"I'm happy we're all together again," she says. The smile stays on afterwards.

Well. Looks like the facial expressions still work. There's some damage, but nothing that can't be fixed. Or managed.

Corvo smiles back. He can feel himself tearing up again. Raises to his feet, watches Emily turn her entire head to follow the movement.

There's a lot to do. Keep her fed, rested and unhurt now that she can't do it herself. Get a look at what she remembers. Fill in the blank, relearn some things. Hopefully she hasn't forgotten anything too essential. It'd be a pain if he had to teach her to walk again. But he'll do it, if he has to.

She's his daughter, after all.


End file.
